


An Economy of Memories

by crfaddis



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alien Biology, Aliens, Drugs, Horror, Memory Alteration, Other, Tentacle Sex, Xenophilia, Zinedom Archive Project, fanzine fic, noncon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1984-05-01
Updated: 1984-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-23 03:30:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14323614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crfaddis/pseuds/crfaddis
Summary: Spock is on edge as he, Kirk, and McCoy embark on a last-minute trading mission to the strange planet of Wyrrd. What are the Wyrrden hiding and what is the real reason they called on the Federation to visit?





	An Economy of Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published in print format in 1984 in the fanzine [Nome #7](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Nome_\(Star_Trek:_TOS_zine_published_in_the_US\)%20#7). It was later reprinted in the fanzine [The Sensuous Vulcan](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Sensuous_Vulcan). You can also read about the story [ at its Fanlore page.](https://fanlore.org/wiki/An_Economy_of_Memories)
> 
> It has been posted to AO3 with the publisher's, author's and the artist's permission.
> 
> Artwork by Gayle F.

 

                                                        

_Artwork by Gayle F_

 

The Wyrrden's world was a distasteful place to be at any time, but most especially during the Schzen-Rite. The...behaviors...Spock observed going on in the public plaza were of a pronounced diabolical turn, and he did not attempt to imagine what might be occurring in the score of thorn-studded, carcass-draped Circles of Worship. Here was the heart of the Alchemist's cult, and even the Audience Hall of the Noh, cosmopolitan by nature of its ambassadorial function, had a sinister aspect. Glazed black eyeless effigies of bygone Somethings lined the aisle to the sunken audience-round like phalanxes of freeze-dried familiars, preserved and stored for future service. The slow-moving escort of Wyrrden deserted them at the entrance, and Spock followed Kirk and McCoy into the dimly lit enclosure.

At the end of the colonnade stood another Wyrrden who stared fixedly at the three for the entire time it took them to walk the deliberately narrow, lengthy path between the looming guardians, its triple eyes seeming not to scan them, but to absorb every photon of light reflected from their forms. As they neared, it opened its aura-lens, and the eyestalks retracted, leaving only rose-knobs of indeterminate focus. Even without its visual apparatus trained on them, the aspect of the Wyrrden was of piercing attention.

The Captain's posture was unusually tense as he walked. Spock knew that Kirk found this mission unpleasant. The previous week's running battle with the Vendetans had been wearing for everyone, and Kirk had been preparing to bring the ship into Starbase for R & R when new orders had abruptly cast him in the chafing role of diplomat. Nor were interactions with the Wyrrden likely to be pleasurable. True, the Alchemists had given the Federation indispensable medical miracles: Bentzuoul, Cordrazine, Masiform-D, and others. But each of those "gifts" had been purchased in wholly unorthodox fashions. For Bentzuoul, that remarkable metabolic refreshant that had saved Phaedre I from virtual extinction, the Federation had traded two superfreighters of sacred Ulkeen mummies from the cemeteries of New Thebes. For Cordrazine, 5 million units of frozen Terran blood -- whole, and less than a month old. For Masiform-D, two hundred unblemished fledgling black llisons from Cassiopea IV. Llisons were an endangered species, and the Cassiopeans who had delivered the birds had reported that no sooner was their cargo delivered than the Wyrrden had wrung the necks of every bird and cut out their hearts and egg sacs. If they offered an item of sufficient worth, the Captain had been authorized by the Federation Council to agree to any legal trade.

The end of the constricting aisle had been reached, and the officers stepped down the steep ramp into the parqueted audience round. Spock noted that the floor was pat terned in a nonagon, in the exact center of which stood a Wyrrden who should be Ambassador Lebt. The Wyrrden made no sign of opening or greeting. Kirk halted just at the perimeter of the nonagon and folded his hands neutrally while Spock and McCoy positioned themselves at his side. Spock stepped back slightly to look at the Doctor out of the corner of his eye. McCoy had not been in good health recently, and was overworked, but he had insisted on accompanying Kirk to the audience, though any of the ship's physicians could have performed the biochemical critique McCoy would make of whatever substance the Alchemists offered. McCoy had come, not out of "itchiness and curiosity," as he claimed, but because he, too, felt uneasy about this situation. The Wyrrden communication had come too abruptly, the time schedule for the audience was too short--there was furtiveness and dark urgency to every nuance. It was impossible for either he--or Spock--to allow Jim Kirk to beam down to Wyrrd without them.

The Wyrrden continued to stand, silent, unmoving, yet vibrantly intent upon them, and Kirk made the first gesture.

"I am Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation Starship _Enterprise_ , and my First Officer, Mr. Spock, and my Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Leonard McCoy. I've been authorized by the Federation Council to negotiate for whatever trade items you have contacted the Council to sell."

Lebt seemed to lean toward them, though Spock was sure it could not possibly have moved, for its mullfire garment stirred not at all. Its four arms were mostly hidden in folds of fabric, but the nubby epidermis of its oral terminus was exposed, and the dead-white of it was tinged with palest blue, supposedly a sign of anxiety. Its eyestalks were still retracted, but Spock recalled reading that the beings appeared not to need specific sensory apparatus for all functions, either input or output. Possibly, they possessed some subtle telepathic capability. There did seem to be an impinging sense of tension that was atmospheric in quality, though Spock was convinced that Lebt was generating it exclusively. There was a rapt convergence of something else that Spock couldn't label, but Kirk and McCoy were at the center of it, with himself less so; almost as though, if they would look up, they would find themselves under the scan of a titanic optical microscope.

The silence drew out, and the tension from Kirk began to add to the charge in the room. Kirk, too, sensed that he was standing on a glass slide. Spock closed his own mind for an instant, centering, and radiated a deliberate cloud of supportive calm. A corner of the Captain's mouth compressed in an invisible smile, and he relaxed, standing as quietly and patiently as the Wyrrden.

"Pleasure us to arrive unexpectedly," the Wyrrden said without warning. Of course, it didn't actually speak--the Rom-link translator on a cord around its uppermost arm turned the Wyrrden's averbal emanations into audible language. The translation itself left much to be desired. "Time wastes no creature, eh? Coming to item of acute interest. Triad you?"

"Yes, the three of us will negotiate," Kirk said cautiously. "What is...the 'item of acute interest'...that you are offering?"

"Cell-singer, formula interest. Learning-not-unlearned for any life of carbon," it said. It leaned toward the Captain, visibly moving this time. "Aura you two point-nine bright. Both Terrans! --What you?"

As it seemed to be addressing him specifically, Spock said, "I am Spock of Vulcan."

"Yea, Vulcan. Lebt Wyrrden. Spock Vulcan. Vulcan reproduce sexual?"

Spock nearly blanched. Whatever the precise meaning Lebt had intended, the primitive Rom-link translator was bound to create only problems. Spock turned to Kirk.

"Captain, if I may--?"

"Please do, Spock."

"Ambassador Lebt, we are experiencing some difficulty with your translator's selection of words and sentence structure. I believe that our discussions would be expedited if I were to use the translator I have with me."

He unslung the universal translator from its shoulder strap and held it out for the Wyrrden to examine.

"Good speak?" it asked. If it was genuinely curious, its own translator failed to capture that nuance in the manufactured voice.

In answer, Spock switched the translator on.

"I trust, Ambassador, that you will now find me more readily understandable," he said.

"Voltan's eyestalk!" the Wyrrden said, a blush of cobalt suffusing its skin. Color collected in the raised nubs, giving the Wyrrden a swiss-dotted appearance for a moment before its normal worm-white returned. Lebt telescoped out several centimeters of eyestalk, focusing on Kirk as though he were a magnet. "Kirk, I am intrigued."

"Perhaps, Ambassador, we can interest you in the design of the universal translator as a trade item for whatever formula you mentioned earlier."

"Possibly, possibly," the creature said. "Your translator is a device of startling precision. I perceive, though, that you are uncomfortable here. I am reminded that Terrans prefer to converse sitting down. Please, we must retire to more pleasant environs, and then we can begin our negotiations."

Turning in a graceless swirl, Lebt flipped his caterpillar-feet to the parquet floor and led up the ramp opposite from that where they had entered. Kirk followed, then McCoy again, and Spock last. As he crossed the expanse of the nonagon, the Vulcan's high sensitivity to sensory fluctuations detected a distinct dip in room temperature. He paused momentarily, looking for a possible source of a draft, but saw none. The chill was strictly defined by the perimeters of the nonagon. Mounting the ramp out of the sunken round, Spock felt his skin prickle involuntarily. Most odd, that. It brought to mind a Terran superstition: "Someone has walked on my grave."

 

***

 

"There's a lot more here than meets the eye," Kirk said softly, leaning forward in the clinging chair that seemed to take up half of the sitting room where the Wyrrden had settled them for the evening.

"I am of a similar opinion," Spock agreed, also keeping his voice low. Though he and Kirk were alone, the possibility that they were being monitored was ever present. "It is not logical, given previous Wyrrden trades, that they should manifest a sudden interest in the universal translator as the principal trade item. The pattern has been a desire for less conventional tradegoods, and--according to past reports--the Wyrrden always had a specific need in mind and did not vary in their demands for that particular need."

"The translator. You know, Spock, I couldn't help feeling that Lebt was covering up anger when you forced it into having to admit that its translator was inferior -- and the inferiority wasn't what Lebt was upset about. It was the _precision_."

"Most intriguing. My father once remarked that deliberate ambiguity is a diplomat's most versatile tool."

"Agreed. It doesn't make sense that the Wyrrden would be using such an inferior translator, either. From what we've seen elsewhere, they're not hurting for technology. They can trade their biochemical secrets for any commodity in the known galaxy."

"It _would_ seem that they want some other, unspecified thing from us."

"I hope they get around to telling us soon," Kirk said, his eyes darting around the steeple-ceilinged room. The place was claustrophobic.

"We cannot make a diplomatic departure until negotiations have been concluded."

"True enough. But they seemed in a big rush when they first contacted the Council. Not even time to pick up someone from the diplomatic corps. Now we're getting a run-around. They've kept Bones in that lab for hours."

"Two point eight five hours, precisely."

Kirk shook his head. "Poor McCoy. I hope it's all worth it."

"The Wyrrden, despite their oddities, have consistently delivered precisely what they have offered. This memory-enhancing drug they have developed will have bountiful uses, including treatments for retardation, amnesia, certain learning disorders, and other pathological conditions, as well as educational capabilities in general. Doctor McCoy seemed to be quite excited by the drug's potential."

Kirk sighed and sat back a bit, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. He eyed the ugly ceiling again, frowning.

"You're right. You're both right. What they have is worth waiting for, playing games for. But I don't have to like it."

To that, Spock said nothing.

"What time of day is it?" Kirk asked suddenly.

"The local time is early evening. Ship's time is 05.43."

"No wonder I'm beat," Kirk groaned.

"Perhaps you should attempt to sleep."

"In this hole? No thanks." He straightened, stretching out his muscles. "Spock, I need to move, to do something. Let's find Bones and see what he's up to. Do you remember how to find the lab?"

"Indeed," Spock said, rising with Kirk. "It is the only room off the corridor to the left."

"I remember. The hall with the gory antique Mexican crucifix. Now where do you suppose they got _that_?"

Spock was about to pull the heavy stone-slab door open when it creaked inward, revealing eight Wyrrden, one of whom was Lebt.

"Eventide greetings," the Ambassador said. It had donned a blue-black cloak with a glaring streak of red as a border, making the colorless oral terminus seem something fabricated of cadavers. The eyestalks wavered at full extension, purposeful.

"We were about to take a stroll," Kirk said, relieved to see Lebt carrying the universal translator. If he was misunderstood, it wouldn't be for any mechanical imprecision. "We didn't think you would mind if we looked around a bit. Wyrrd is unlike any world we've seen."

"Naturally, it isn't," Lebt said, without amusement. "You may go where you like, though you should be aware that it is Schzen-Rite, and as you are unlike us, you might be mistaken for Perverts."

"Perverts?"

"Is there another word known to your machine?" Kirk traded glances with Spock and shook his head.

"No. I expect it chose the closest synonym. We were only going to see Dr. McCoy."

"Your beloved friend. Certainly, you should go to him. However, Mr. Spock, do permit Captain Kirk to visit the Doctor alone. We believe that you will find our biosynthesis laboratories interesting, and if you will come with us now, we will show them to you."

Kirk had been radiating alarm since Lebt's remark about McCoy. There was no way that Lebt should have gotten any personal information about any of them. Neither was it likely that Lebt had acquired that information prior to the ship's arrival at Wyrrd; that it had been the _Enterprise_ that had been assigned this mission was strictly random chance, for the ship was seldom as close to the remote Wyrrd world as the pursuit of the Vendetans had brought it. The Wyrrden were telepaths of some unknown quality. And Spock saw his own suspicion reflected back to him from Kirk's eyes; whatever the Alchemists wanted, it was personal.

"I would prefer to accompany the Captain, as I, too, am concerned about Dr. McCoy," Spock said honestly. He was sure his mindshields were in place, but truth left no chinks in the armor. "The Doctor has not been well recently. If it is possible, I would appreciate the opportunity to observe your biosynthesis techniques at another time."

"It would not be possible," Lebt said. Yes--now that he had attuned himself to it, Spock could feel a faint, hesitant pressure on the contours of his brain. If the Wyrrden were true telepaths, though, they were weak ones. There must be some other, unique ability that they used to derive nonverbal information. And then he deduced what it was: reports had called the natural glassine lenses that slid over the Wyrrden's retracted eyestalks the "aura-lenses." The Vegans had done extensive research on the invisible auras generated by every living creature, which effects were discernible only with highly specialized devices. The research had hinted at a vast quantity of information contained in the variances of auras. And Lebt had had its aura-lenses engaged during most of the day's discussions. Now, one of the other Wyrrden had its eyestalks retracted, its lenses engaged. It was the source of the vague disturbance. Very probably, the aura-sensors were linked in some fashion to the weak telepathic abilities as well.

All of this went though Spock's mind in an instant, and he returned his attention to Lebt just as the Ambassador was finishing, "...only empty during such Rites, and otherwise, we cannot allow you to tour it."

Spock's mind sped in overdrive. What did the Wyrrden really want? Why did they want the Captain to go to McCoy alone? No answers. Insufficient data. He turned to Kirk, wishing he could relay his realizations, but the Wyrrden waited, hovering, reminding him of the ranks of black stone demons that attended the walkway into this building.

"Mr. Spock will be delighted to tour your laboratories," Kirk said drily. There wasn't a graceful way out of it, they both knew it.

"Indeed," Spock said, inclining his head slightly. He stepped into the corridor with his black-cloaked escort, heading in the opposite direction that Kirk took. As they turned at a bend in the corridor, Spock peered back, but Kirk was out of sight. The only thing at the other end of the hall was the dark, full-sized Nazarene stretched on his gibbet. The exaggerated wounds glared back at Spock out of the gloom.

 

***

 

Timesense told him that two point six one hours had passed when Spock finally returned to the assigned room where he had last seen Kirk. He had done his diplomatic best to hurry the tour of the biosynthesis labs, but the Wyrrden had always had one more process to explain to him, one more apparatus. Little of it had been technology that was not known and used elsewhere in the Federation, and the Vulcan had had to exercise strict discipline to maintain attention and courtesy. The Alchemists had figuratively enclosed him by their presence, constantly at his elbow, moving with him at every step. There had been a new tension, with them. It was, he recognized, fear mixed with a dull _Waiting_ ... yet it was not fear of him, but almost _for him_ . No, not for _him_. For--Jim? Jim and McCoy. The Wyrrden were waiting for Jim and McCoy to do something--or have something done to them?--and the possible outcome generated a contained terror. If the Wyrrden had had human-like faces, they would have had expressions of awed, yet frightened, virgins.

He rounded the last corner to the sitting room at a near-skid, deliberately not looking at the grim statue still on the far wall. The cold, burdensome door swung inward at his shove, revealing--nothing. The room was bare, not only of Kirk and McCoy, but of any furnishings at all. He turned and sped back to the first lab.

It, too, was deserted. And emptied.

Spock swept the room with a savage glance. He was certain, absolutely certain, that he had not made any incorrect turns coming back here. This was where the lab had been. Here was where he had last seen McCoy. Here was where Jim Kirk had come.

Then he saw the half-open portal, source of a thin, cold draft that he had somehow not noticed until that morrent. He crossed the room and scanned the canted slab of wall. The opening was too small at that angle to pass an adult. Then, as Spock looked closer, he saw that the portal was marked by a dull-on-glossy nonagon of the same color as the walls. There was an odd sense of logic to it: Spock placed one hand in the exact center of the symbol--glacier-cold center of it--and the slab swung noiselessly into the ceiling.

The passage beyond the wall was wide, sloped in a slow, descending arch, and very dark. Spock did not step into it. He did not know, had no way of knowing, that to follow it would lead him to Kirk and McCoy. Alternatively, it seemed that the room had been carefully cleared so that nothing prevented his discovery of the portal. What role did he have to play in the Wyrrden's enigmatic plans? His mind offered up an elusive, ambiguous tidbit, something that Lebt had said when they had first met and the Wyrrden had been using his too-primitive translator: " _Triad you_?"

_We are_.

He opened his communicator, but only static answered. He recalled that there was some kind of forcefield up at night during Schzen-Rite. That left only himself to seek his companions.

He was not surprised when the wall descended behind him. He did not expect that it would open to any effort, and it didn't. There was a vague illumination from the smooth floor, enough to show where the floor ended and the walls began. He walked. The passage began a slow, descending turn to the left, continuous, spiraling. The air was cold, but not intolerably so. His footsteps rang in his ears.

The passage was even, featureless, interminable. He knew he had walked a long way, surely beyond the above-ground confines of the Audience Hall, despite the gentle spiral. The sameness of the passage made it impossible to judge in what direction he was traveling in relation to the Hall, but he was likely under one of the vast plazas or Circles of Worship that composed the Cult Center of the Capital. Above him, every imaginable demonic practice was being enacted. Even in the stone-walled biosynth labs, he had distantly heard screams of delight, rage, pain. It was all incomprehensible, illogical, could not possibly serve a rational purpose in an essentially technological society…. For some reason, he found himself thinking back to the Archons….

He stepped out into space, and for one heartbeat, he was too startled to react. Then he fell--no, slid--down an incredibly steep, lubricated ramp, tumbling over and over because he couldn't get friction to right himself--skidding, clawing out, bright-white-light-worm-faces-not-faces-whizzing-past-peering-at-him-wishful-fearful-transparent-walls-of-chute-to-red-dark-dim-soft-wet-holeplace-clinging, slowing, spinning but slowing, clutched at by soft cloying hairy velvet texture under him, too dizzy to think…

He was in a womb, dark, sticky-wet. The murkiness was not utter lightlessness, only too charcoal-grey for shape or detail. He seemed to be lying in wet, springy hair, very long and very brush-stiff. It cushioned him. He struggled to think, again, after the breath-stealing plunge. Had the brief glimpses of Wyrrden been real? He decided that they were. They had been waiting, inexplicably, for him to streak past them on his way into this...place.

He eased himself up, controlling for a lashing pain in his skull. The cushioning walls had absorbed most of his fall, but he had narrowly missed fracturing his neck. There was a strong, reeking odor to this soft womb, and from far away--or muffled close?--low, wet sounds. Something moving...slithering. He tried to stand up, but the surface bobbed under his feet like walking on rolling waves. Hands and knees, he made his way toward the sound. His eyes were acclimating to the darkness again after the glare during his fall, and he could see a little, but no detail. Then he stopped, bringing himself to complete, breath-held, heart-paused stillness. The slithering sound was still a distance away, but another, very weak sound, like whimpering, was somewhere nearer.

A burst of light stabbed his eyes as a wall of the moist chamber contracted like a flex valve, silhouetting a crouching human form in the glare from the chamber beyond. The silhouette tottered on all fours, then fell with a wet whump into the womb. The valve pursed shut again. Spock crawled toward the sound of labored breathing.

"noooooooooo------" the gurgling voice shrilled as Spock's searching hand connected with its source.

Cold wet flesh, shrinking from him, prostrated, finished. McCoy.

"Doctor--it's Spock.."

"don't, no, don't, don't--"

"McCoy, it is I--"

"don't, no, don't touch, hurt, no, no--"

Spock felt around for McCoy's head, barely noticing that the uniform was in shreds. He found the wet-plastered hair, an ear, sticky, and captured the chilled face between both hands.

"It is Spock, Doctor--Spock--no one will hurt you. McCoy!--Bones--listen to me--"

He leaned close to try to shake some sense back into the man, and saw, by the pitchy black streaks against the murkier grey, that McCoy was bleeding out of every orifice. His face was contorted with a horror more profound than even that introduced by Cordrazine paranoia.

"I cannot link with you--cannot like this--" Spock said. Emotion was a seismic cataclysm inside of him, he must control-- "but I will try--something tangential, some support…."

It was apparent that McCoy was severely injured, though in what way, Spock could not determine. There would be nothing he could do until he eased McCoy out of his mindless panic. His thoughts flashed fearfully to Jim, possibly also in the other chamber, possibly also hurt, possibly also dying. But McCoy he had, McCoy was here. One at a time….

Any physical touch seemed to aggravate the doctor's terror, but Spock could do nothing without touching. He lay down next to McCoy and pulled himself next to the shaking frame carefully, immobilizing it gently, soothing it, touching, probing oh so lightly, emanating serenity, comfort, reassurance….

"You do not fear me," he crooned, brushing the slicked cheek, "you will be all right," smoothing the strings of soaked hair, "you hear me, and you are calmed...you hear me...you hear me…."

And the rasping shrieks died away, leaving only soul-wrenching sobs.

"S-s-spock?--"

"I am here, Doctor."

"Oh jesus--j-jesus--" McCoy clung to him, trembling uncontrollably. "--it--I thought--"

"What is it? What do you fear?"

"Jim--it has Jim--"

"What does? McCoy, try to tell me so I can aid him!"

The doctor coughed harshly. Something had torn the inside of his throat, clogging it with blood.

"Speak to me!" Spock insisted when the coughing eased, but McCoy sagged in his grasp. Instantly, Spock bent his head to the chest, listened anxiously, heard the shocky heartbeats.

He had to get McCoy to medical attention. He had to find Jim. He had to find some way out of this trap. Laying the doctor down again, Spock made sure that, at least for now, McCoy's air passages were clear and his uniform collar didn't constrict his throat. Looking around, he could still see essentially nothing. The loathsome stench was stronger, it seemed, and there was a regular, periodic airflow, as of breathing on a grand scale, from the other side of the womb's valve. Spock took his own deep breath, forcing calmness, alertness. Something in the next chamber had mauled McCoy, body and mind, and that same something had Jim Kirk. Calmness now, and logic.

"Captain?" he called aloud.

A muffled, slithering sound answered him. "Captain, are you there?"

_Slither_.

 

                                              

_Artwork by Gayle F_

 

He crawled toward the valve warily, straining his senses, trying to conjecture what lay beyond it. He must be ready for it, whatever it might be.

"If you cannot answer me verbally, Captain, please attempt to make some other signal."

_Slither_.

The tacky hairs were cloying, the surface under him pulsing like a living thing. Perhaps it _was_ a living thing. If so, it seemed thus far to be passive to his presence. Ahead of him, though, the slithering sound was joined by a wet slurping, like smacking lips, a spasming vagina.

Struggling to stand, Spock grabbed handholds in the bristling hairs of the velvety wall, trying to gain enough height to find the opening. It contracted obediently as his fingers brushed its muscular rim. In the sudden light, Spock glanced behind him long enough to comprehend the half-nude, blood-smeared heap that was McCoy's mercifully unconscious form. Then he took a firm grasp of the contracted, flesh-like lips of the valve.

_Slither_.

He hauled himself into the valve and squinted into the next chamber, too dazzled to make out anything, blinking furiously. The wet sound was close, _here_ \--

A thin, sticky tentacle came out of the dazzle and wrapped a dozen tight loops of hot, rubbery captivity around one wrist before he fully sensed it. Clawing at it, another loop ensnared his free hand, and immediately yet another, wire-thin, immobilized his legs and a fourth felt along his face and darted a curious, rasping probe into a corner of his mouth. It held him powerfully, leaving him for the moment in the short tunnel of the valve as though he were a mackerel in a holding net. The uneven pressure of the tentacles bent Spock's neck back at a painful angle, but the dazzle had diminished, and he could see, upside-down, into the chamber.

He had never seen its like, an unspeakably complex, obscene wet being with scores of stylus-thin, coiling and uncoiling stick-green tentacles rippling over the bloated, multi-lipped, headless spheroid body. It pulsed and heaved, its hundred orange-suffused pores opening and closing like so many mouths, brushing and plunging its slithering tentacles into them. It lolled, half-submerged in chocolate liquid in the chamber nearly filled by its bulk, then it jerked spasmodically, sending the hundred lips smacking lewdly across its jelly-like core. The nearest creature he had seen to its bizarre form was the telepathic impression he had experienced of the metamorphic Kelvans. But this was no Kelvan. He had no idea what it was.

Abruptly, he was being dragged out of the valve, reeled in toward the creature, drawn toward its repulsive surface, and more tentacles closed over and around him like a weaving of living cremsh-vines, or a vast nest of wriggling greensnakes. The tips oozed over his flesh, rough like a cat's tongue, probing, testing, seeming desperate in their little dartings, anxious to master by touch, to construct a tactile topo-map of his physical form. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, but the prying tips probed insistently, tearing one eyelid and rasping across his unprotected cornea. He had struggled coolly, scientifically, before; now he flailed wildly, denying this--this invasion.

Its stink filled his nose until exploring tentacles plugged them. He opened his mouth to breathe, and the feelers slipped into it, gagging him. He choked and retched, half-strangled with the wriggling bulk. He heard, more than felt, his uniform ripped and parted.

For one brief instant, a textured, familiar warmth--presence--rubbed past his entangled arm and he forced his eyes open to see a nude, scarlet-spattered _human_ form through the web of tentacles.

"Jim--" he choked, the sound not escaping past his tongue. But he could not see, the blood clouded his eyes, the sticky feelers swarmed over his face again, his body was manipulated into intimate contact with the core of the creature. The smacking pores were next to his ear, he was being shoved and kneaded into some specific position, utterly unable to resist the manipulations, and suddenly the creature took possession of his arm, legs, and his copulatory organ, and jammed them into the too-small quivering lips of its core, embracing him in smothering coital urgency. It was intolerably hot, sticky-slimy, hungry-lewd, and the need to scream filled Spock's mind for a precarious moment. The mouths sucked at him, sucked wetly--and then the probing tentacles pulsed with new heat, and began to inch their way into his body at every opening. Half-conscious with anoxia, he felt them bore into him, slithering down his throat, past his epiglottis, curling into his stomach...piercing his anus, up his rectum, inching into his colon...forcing the larynx, slithering down the trachea, invading the bronchi. It plucked at his armpits, his navel, it ravaged his eardrums. It possessed him utterly, sick with lust--lust--

The rampaging pain, accumulating weakness, threatened to dissolve Spock's unsteady bastion of sanity. Threads of numbing terror undermined him--helplessness--and he clutched at the scattering atoms of logic, grains of resolve slipping too quickly through his grasp. He must act. Now. But to touch that mind--that animal obscenity, abomination of driven demands, male and female incarnate depravity------

He thrust with the full force of his mind-- _I am_ !--and the backlash of pent-up madness burst through his senses. _Flame_ crisped the nerves of his male-members, surrogate and real, sucked in spasming vulvas of engorged pandemonium. Lapping surges of pulsing _want_ , intense arousal, curled in currents through the center of him, meeting, intertwining energies to burst his cells. He convulsed in every nucleus, an ecstasy/agony explosion of white atomics that annihilated consciousness on every level--and, shrieking once, he shuddered...and died.

 

***

 

Except that he was not dead. He was awakening slowly, a grueling task, a battle behind sealed and heavy eyelids. He did not want to open those eyelids to confront anything, he would have preferred to drown again in pools of dreamless sleep; but his oxygen-laden corpuscles sped busily through his brain, tidying like a hundred thousand robosweeps, dusting off the sleepy neurons and nudging them into wakefulness. He cracked his eyelids slightly, and when the gentle light didn't hurt, he opened his eyes completely. He was alive.

"Slowly, slowly, Mr. Spock," a too-familiar "voice" warned.

Spock turned his head carefully toward the Wyrrden ambassador, Lebt. A tapestry of scarlet nonagons floated behind the Alchemist. He was in a room on Wyrrd. And he _remembered_.

"The Captain--McCoy--"

"They are here; unconscious, but recovering. I assure you that all of you will leave here in good health," the Wyrrden said, its non-face suffused with pale azure. "How do you feel?"

Spock closed his eyes for a moment, turning inward, sensing. There was the profound heaviness he associated with post-surgical fatigue. Some unique narcotic that did not seem to inhibit mental clarity was holding pain at bay. He could see well, though he suspected that bright light would be uncomfortable, and his ear passages had obviously been repaired. His eardrums, his eyes, his throat, his-- He refused the surge of emotion. Shut it off. Smothered it firmly. He could dissolve the memory links later. Now, he must _think_ ….

"I remember all of it," he accused.

Lebt's eyestalks recoiled slightly. "As we feared. The drug of forgetfulness does not seem to have an effect on your copper-based physiology."

"Indeed, it would be _most_ convenient for you," Spock said, "if we were to forget that you delivered us into the power of that tormented creature." He swallowed, surprised that he could speak at all. His throat was dry and numb.

"It may yet be possible to strike a bargain, Mr. Spock."

"Unlikely," Spock said, "but you might progress to such an outcome by beginning with an explanation of your actions."

"Of course. Your Captain. Doctor, and yourself accompanied me and other Wyrrden to a celebration in your honor. It being Schzen-Rite as well, a Nebbiot--a great eel like animal with remarkable powers--was brought to make a divination. Unfortunately, the Nebbiot, which is a shy, nervous animal, became unexpectedly frightened by your off-worlder appearance and, breaking its leash, attacked the three of you. Several Wyrrden were also injured, and the beast had to be destroyed. As the huddfield of Schzen cannot be lowered during Rite, it was impossible to contact your ship, and you were therefore brought to our own hospital, where you have been given expert treatment and restored to health."

Spock stared at the expressionless Wyrrden for several moments of silence. "What happened, in actuality, was not an accident."

"Truth," it said silkily, "is relative. Your Captain and Doctor will recall only the events I have described."

Spock pushed himself up on his elbows and gazed across the room to two low-grav cots, where Kirk and McCoy lay swaddled in some healing-net. Their breathing was peaceful and they appeared to be asleep.

"You have altered their memories?"

"Naturally. With Terrans, it is possible. We Wyrrden cannot afford to compromise our necessary occasional trade with the Federation. It was the optimum strategy."

"Will you tell me, since you apparently cannot alter my memories, what your motivations were in bringing us here?"

"I might, if I could depend upon your silence."

"You cannot depend upon it," Spock said evenly. "I am duty-bound to report what has occurred here, regardless of whether it conflicts with the versions that Kirk and McCoy may record."

"Yet I think you will be silent, once you fully understand the circumstances, and I will tell you what you wish to know.

"About two hundred years ago, as you count time, a Wyrrden trader returned from an unknown place with the Maenad. The Maenad is the only one of its kind, and no one knows if another even exists, despite great efforts on our part to locate another. The Maenad has very little intelligence, perhaps less than a common lizard, but it secretes a complex chemical that expands the intelligence of Wyrrden buddlings a thousand-fold. That chemical cannot be successfully synthesized--we have tried repeatedly--and upon it depends the continuation of Wyrrd's most vital resource, that which has made our tiny world powerful and independent in a conquest-hungry galaxy: the genius of our people."

"But," Spock deduced, "the Maenad went into rut unexpectedly, and without a mate, it would die."

The Wyrrden extended its eyestalks full-length. "Your knowledge surprises me, Mr. Spock."

"I have...knowledge of other, similar occurrences in nature."

"No doubt. The Maenad is an extremely long-lived animal, and it seems to have reached maturity only recently. But it is a sexual creature, and without a mate for it, we were at a loss. As you know, we Wyrrden are asexual, and reproduce by budding. We have very little understanding of the nature of sexuality, but we did design and manufacture a bio-construct mate for it. The Maenad rejected it, and it became obvious that the creature would accept only genuinely sexual creatures. It also became apparent that the Maenad was deteriorating, and that unless it mated successfully, it would soon be dead. Upon reflection, we concluded that the most quickly obtainable source of other sexual beings would be a Federation starship, which could reach us within two or three of your days. We called, dangling enticing bait, and you came."

It fit together. Spock had known fully, in the instant that he had touched the creature's mind, that it was in the clutches of an obsessive lust very like the madness of _pon farr_. It had used them...used them like….

He slammed a door on those thoughts, focusing on the _now_. The Wyrrden, he believed, was telling at least a portion of the truth. Everything the Alchemists had done had inevitably led to that wet, hair-lined lair. He wondered, with a twinge of identification, about the Maenad's response.

"Was your ploy successful?" he asked Lebt.

"We believe the Maenad will now survive."

"You did not know that _we_ would survive."

"I assure you that we had no notion of what the Maenad would do. Its violence was completely unexpected, as it is normally an exceedingly gentle creature. We did not wish you harm, and we were prepared to render you any assistance once you had served our necessary purpose. Your deaths would have been quite undesirable."

"What are your intentions, now?"

"We will make abject apologies to you, your Captain, your physician, and the Federation for your accidental injuries, and we will trade Henkeloid--the memory enhancer we offered earlier--for your design of the universal translator, which, incidentally, we do not need."

"You are not concerned about the discrepancy my report will create?"

"What 'discrepancy,' Mr. Spock? I admit to knowing little about Vulcans, but I have observed you closely, read your aura, and I have the judgment-gift. There are beings across the room for whose sakes you were willing to gamble your life. The memories they have been programmed for are not pleasant--could not be pleasant, for there is not time for them to be completely healed before they will return to your ship, and an explanation for their injuries had to be provided--but you know better than anyone how more terrible was the reality. They remember innocent, impersonal injuries. I do not believe you will risk the greater trauma of reawakening the buried reality in them. It would not take very much to dissolve the programmed memories, especially as both men appear to have great regard for your truthfulness."

"If I do not report what has actually happened here, other Federation citizens may fall victim to your berserker Maenad at some future time."

"I will not deny the possibility. We do not know, however, when the Maenad will again come into need of mates, if ever. When you give it some thought, Mr. Spock, I hope you will agree that your brief discomfort will have purchased a drug of great benefit to your Federation, and, as your own memory of the incident fades, you will find the price was not so great."

Spock looked away from the pasty-white oral terminus where, it seemed, some fiendish head belonged. The aftertaste of horror still plucked at the fringes of his tight mental control. It would be a vast relief to obliterate the emotional aspects of the day's events from his memory. Possibly, circumstances would later allow him to edit the events entirely. He could, if it became necessary, perform a similar conscious-memory edit for Jim and the doctor as well. It would be infinitely preferable, though, that the remnants of those memories never be allowed to surface in their consciousnesses, for however brief a time. Memories recalled are nightmares reinforced.

He was very tired, and he wished to sleep. He turned the alternatives over and over in his mind. The weight of conflicting values pulled logic inside-out. There was no clear right or wrong choice. But he could live, he realized, with almost any pain but that of harming the two persons closest to him. From that pain, logic would offer little retreat.

"I am sure that Captain Kirk, when he is well again, will be pleased to negotiate a trade of the design of the universal translator for the formula of Henkeloid," Spock capitulated. Some part of him was surprised that he felt so relieved.

 

***

 

Schzen-Rite was over, and robosweeps were dismantling the gruesome decorations draped on the Circles of Worship in the public square. Lebt and several attendants accompanied the Federation representatives out to the transporter-clear reception pad to see them off. McCoy, still limping a little, had triplicate copies of the pertinent data on Henkeloid tucked into his medical pouch. Kirk was wearing the eyeshades to protect his still-healing eyes from the afternoon brilliance. Anxious to get back to space, the Captain turned to the Alchemists as he reached for his communicator.

"Ambassador, thank you again for the excellent care you've given us."

"Please, no thank-yous, Captain Kirk," Lebt said, but its eyestalks were focused on the First Officer. "It was, as you say, the least we could do. It is our hope that future opportunities will permit other, mutually beneficial exchanges between our peoples."

"That they will be truly mutually beneficial is also my hope," Spock said evenly.

The Wyrrden seemed to be waiting for a final reassurance, some sign that Spock intended to keep his word, and his silence. But Kirk had contacted the transporter room, and Spock stepped into the beam-up pattern with the other two. The mild, tickling elongation-sensation of the transporter beam grabbed him, and he had one fleeting thought before he dissolved into transient energy: on a scale of morality ranging from expediency to altruism, the pact he had made ranged somewhere in the middle. Where logic had lacked, some other part of himself had stepped in, and he had made the best choice available to him. And that, he knew, would help more than anything else to put the memories of Wyrrd away for good.

 

                                                      

                                                                     


End file.
